


i am my mother's only one

by mandyfuckinmilkovich



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Gallavich Week, M/M, Tumblr Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 01:49:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1801018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandyfuckinmilkovich/pseuds/mandyfuckinmilkovich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Bipolar."</p><p>They each take turns saying it, holding it on their tongues, getting used to the feel and the weight of 7 letters and 3 syllables.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i am my mother's only one

**Author's Note:**

> Gallavich Week Day 2 Prompt: Come What May. I don’t know, I wanted to explore Ian and Monica sort of and did that sort of and this is what it was supposed to be. Sort of.
> 
> Trigger: Mentions of depression, abuse, blood, suicide attempt.

"I’m gonna marry you someday."

Ian’s manic when he says this. Mickey knows it, Mickey feels it in his bones, in his chest. He feels it in Ian’s hands where he grips Mickey’s waist. He sees it on Ian’s face, in the way his eyes widen every few seconds, even in the way his hair feels running through Mickey’s fingers.

Mickey knows all of this, accepts all of this. Ian has too and they’ve got an understanding. Take it with a grain of salt.

Still.

"Yeah?" His voice is so small. He feels so small and stripped down and held together. He can’t breathe right and the rocking in his hips slows down a little, Ian’s hands running up and down his back, making him shiver.

Ian nods. Ian smiles. Ian kisses him sloppily, teeth biting lips and large hands cupping his face, so tender and soft, it makes Mickey’s eyes wet.

"Yeah."

Ian is manic. And Mickey tries to not forget this. He tries to let it go but it burrows in, it’s seared into his memory along with the depth of Ian’s smile.

//

It’s Monica’s fault. Just like it’s Terry’s fault.

They built the maggot infested Jenga tower.

Ian and Mickey were forced to knock it down and rebuild.

With maggot infested rubble.

//

Mickey hears all about it. The family history. Monica Gallagher and how she’d stay up all night and all day and have enough energy for a small army. _Or make a small army,_ Mickey thinks, eyeing Ian’s siblings all lined up in a row.

They’re reminiscing. Ian’s sat in the recliner in the corner, taking it all in, a good natured grin on his face but Mickey can see it. The fear. Deep down, in his eyes. He doesn’t want her past to be his future.

"God," Fiona runs her fingers through her hair, this big smile on her face. "Remember Disneyland?"

Lip and Ian nod, Debbie leans back on the couch and smiles wistfully, while Carl gestures for her to continue. And Mickey hears about Monica waking everyone up, with this grand idea to drive all the way to California. See the beaches and the zoo and the mouse. The car breaking down 10 minutes into the journey and half asleep children watching their mother smash the windows and the lights before marching them to the park across the street and making up stories for them. Stories about how they were in Disneyland and the slide was a train and the swings were Dumbo and the stripped, graffitied metal of the jungle gym was made of fairy dust and hiding a castle.

Monica made so many promises. They’d fix the car, they’d save money, they’d stop doing drugs. They’d actually go there one of these days.

Not even 3 weeks later, almost Christmas, she was laid out in bed, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to pretend. The car in front of the house, smashed and broken, like promises. And they learned. They all had to learn. This is how Monica was.

Ian smiles and laughs and chimes in with different things, different details, different light on Monica and her mind. Car accidents and knives and blood on the tile in the kitchen. Mickey’s eyes don’t leave Ian once.

They’re both afraid. It chills Mickey to the bone. But he doesn’t have the luxury of letting it get to him. To them.

//

Ian’s dawdling and Mickey’s got all the time in the world.

"What if it doesn’t work?"

"You gotta actually step inside. Down the rabbit hole. Through the looking glass Alice."

Ian glares at him and stuffs his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders.

"What if she wants to put me on meds?"

"We’ll deal with it."

"What if they change me? What if you… what if you-"

"They won’t. It’s not fucking possible."

"What if I hate it?"

"What if I hate turnips?"

Ian’s mouth twitches and he snags Mickey’s wrist, rubbing his thumb in circles on his skin.

"Will you wait for me?"

Mickey’s already heading towards a bench outside the office building. “I’m not going anywhere, Gallagher.”

//

Ian goes to therapy twice a week and spends every night in Mickey’s arms.

"Bipolar."

They each take turns saying it, holding it on their tongues, getting used to the feel and the weight of 7 letters and 3 syllables.

"I don’t want to be like her," Ian whispers to him in the darkness, their bodies angled towards each other, Ian’s hand held tightly in his.

"You’re not."

Mickey throws away every sharp object in his house regardless.

//

Ian’s pills sit on the bedside table in Mickey’s room and clink around in Ian’s pocket while they’re transferred to the medicine cabinet at the Gallagher house. Back and forth, back and forth.

//

The first prescription is shit. Ian’s completely blank, completely monotone, painting their world in grey, shutting out the light and the fire. Mickey finds him in the shower, rocking back and forth, his arms wrapped tightly around his legs. Mickey gets in with him and holds him, the spray cold and making their teeth chatter. Tells him it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be fine, he’ll make it okay again.

He has no idea how this is happening.

//

"I look like her."

"That doesn’t mean shit."

"I just- I don’t know, always understood her? She never seemed crazy to me."

"You’re not crazy."

"I dropped out of high school. To join the army. While underage."

"Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to here? A valedictorian?"

"I was basically homeless."

"We’re all basically homeless."

"I pulled a knife on someone."

Mickey grips his face hard. Stares into his eyes unblinking. “You are not crazy.”

"Mickey…" Ian’s hands hold his and their foreheads meet. He’s shaking a little, his face is drawn and worried and his eyes are so scared.

"You’re not crazy," Mickey whispers urgently, harshly against his mouth before smashing his lips to Ian’s.

//

Ian likes waking up early still. Even when they try and figure it out. He compromises with Mickey and instead of running, they walk. Their breath fogs in front of their faces and the walk close together, their shoulders and elbows bumping the whole way, Ian with a smile on his face, Mickey biting the inside of his cheek.

The sun rises and Ian stops, reaching for Mickey’s hand. Mickey stares at their linked fingers while Ian mutters how beautiful it is. How beautiful the colors and the sky and how it touches everything. How it lights everything, giving life.

Mickey snorts and flicks Ian’s cheek, running ahead, Ian chasing after him. Mickey’s hand tingles the entire time.

//

The second prescription scares the shit out of Mickey. They think it’s the one, it balances him out, he goes to sleep and wakes up and showers and takes care of himself. He gets take out with Mandy and baby sits Liam and fucks Mickey into the mattress. He laughs and dances and pinches Mickey’s face (“Smile grumpus.”).

But there’s a night. Mickey wakes up alone and Ian’s not in the bathroom or the hallway or the kitchen. He’s not at the Gallagher house. He’s not at the Alibi. He’s by the tracks, no shoes on just his running pants and Mickey’s brown sweater, the sleeves at his bare wrists. He’s at the tracks and it’s dark and there’s snow on the ground and he takes a step forward, almost mesmerized.

A train whizzes by. Ian’s hair flutters. Mickey’s chest almost cracks open.

//

"I wasn’t going to do it."

They’re in bed, Mickey’s back against Ian’s chest. He can’t get the image out of his head. He can’t even close his eyes, he’s afraid, he’s so goddamn afraid Ian won’t be there when he wakes up.

"I promise you. I wasn’t going to do it."

Mickey can’t tell if he’s manic or lucid or Ian or back at the tracks. Ian’s eyes are clouded and his hands are shaky and Mickey can’t tell anything anymore.

//

Mickey gets an address from Ian's doctor. There's a place. A clinic. It looks. Good. Clean. Like it could make the difference.

They argue. Ian punches a hole in the wall. Mickey doesn't even flinch.

"You said it Mickey. You said it yourself." He shoves Mickey against the wall, his face scrunched in anger, in desperation. "I'm not crazy."

"You're not."

"Then- then what the fuck-"

"I don't know how to help you." Mickey's voice cracks on the last word and he fights to stay upright, to stay strong, to stay firm on this. He has to be firm on this. He can't let this happen to them, to Ian. He can't let this get them.  
Ian's face changes in seconds.

"Mick… please."

"It's your choice. You don't want it, fine. But we've got to find something… some fucking thing that'll work."

They can't and they collapse on the floor, Ian shaking in Mickey's arms, Mickey stroking his hair.

//

Ian's duffle is packed light. "It's only for a little while."

Mickey nods and lights up his third cigarette of the morning, earning him a glare from the nurse on duty.

Ian traces the words on his knuckles and Mickey memorizes his face, his smell, the way he bites his lip nervously.

Ian looks at the double doors that lead to the unit, at the nurses' station, at the clipboard in his hands that he's about the sign, signing his life away, if only briefly.

"I'm fucking crazy, aren't I?" He whispers to nothing and no one, squeezing Mickey's hand lightly before getting up and walking away. Mickey sits there long after the doors have swung closed, an ache growing in his chest every second.

//

They all tell him the same thing. “You did the right thing.”

_I did the right thing._

_I did the right thing._

_He can get help._

_I did the right thing._

Mickey stares down into the glass full of whiskey, not drinking a drop. He can’t go home, he can’t go to sleep in their empty bed, Ian’s smell everywhere, his clothes everywhere, his shit in Mickey’s bathroom, his face in Mickey’s head. The bitterness rises in his throat, clenching tight with betrayal and stinging his eyes.

The whiskey is a waste but it’s okay because Mickey did the right thing.

//

"You’re nothing like dad. You know that right?"

Mandy’s leaning against the doorway, her fingers playing with the frayed hem of her shirt, her face open and clear. And that’s the trick question. The false truth. Dad always threatened mom, he always said if she didn’t watch it, he’d put her away. _For her own good,_ Terry would always tell them. Mickey never wanted this, he never wanted Ian in a place like that. His head is filled with trains and red hair.

"Yeah," his face cracks into a smile. "Sure."

"I’m serious. What you did… what you’re doing… for Ian. It’s good. It’s better than dad would have done for mom."

Mickey’s silent, and Mandy taps her fingers on her thighs before briefly smiling at him and leaving. Like every night, Mickey doesn’t sleep at all.

//

3 weeks. 21 days. 504 hours. 1,814,400 seconds. Mickey feels every one of them.

//

Ian’s eyes are clear. That’s the first thing Mickey notices. They’re clear and green and bright and they crinkle in the corners when he sees Mickey. Because he’s smiling.

He stops in front of Mickey and they just stare. Take their fill. Mickey’s fingers itch and tap against his legs. Ian is completely still. Completely clear. Mickey is so nervous he thinks he might throw up.

"You doing ok?"

Ian nods, his eyes never leaving Mickey’s face.

"They got you set up on something?"

Another nod. He pats his pocket and Mickey hears pills rattle around.

Mickey’s not sure who moves first, but suddenly, Ian’s got an arm wrapped around Mickey’s waist and he lifts him up a bit, their mouths meeting and Mickey sighs. It’s like coming home. Every time, it’s like coming home. He feels alive and awake and better. He hopes Ian feels the same.

Ian pulls back, his cheeks red and eyes still closed, he leans against Mickey, holding him tight.

"I’m gonna marry you someday."

Mickey’s heart hurts, it’s beating loud and he wonders if Ian can feel it, hear it.

"Yeah?" Mickey can barely speak from smiling too hard.

Ian smiles back. “Yeah.”


End file.
